Controversial ’Islamic Healing’ Practices Raise Concerns in Morocco

There are a number of people in Morocco today who claim to cure those with psychiatric disorders, the possessed under the influence of witchcraft. But under what conditions do they do this and what guarantees are there that patients will come out unscathed from this type of practice? TelQuel has toured some of these healers and provides disturbing details. The first on the list is the preacher Naîm Rabii, who describes himself as "the ambassador of ruqyah shar’iyyah," and whose videos are available on YouTube. He claims to "cure possession, witchcraft and the evil eye through the recitation of Quranic verses."

According to Youness Loukili, an anthropologist and author of a doctoral thesis on ruqyah shar’iyyah defended at the University Mohammed V in Rabat, "in Morocco, ruqyah has existed among the fqihs, in the zawiyas and darihs for centuries." But ruqyah shar’iyyah is a new phenomenon, "born in the wake of Salafi-Wahhabi thought. Its expansion began with the introduction of this doctrine into the kingdom in the 1980s."

Abdelhalim Otarid is a neuropsychiatrist and president of the Moroccan Association of Private Practice Psychiatrists. He confides that a large part of his patients have turned to ruqyah shar’iyyah before resorting to his services. "They only call on a psychiatrist as a last resort," he said, before adding that "these aberrant practices, which amount to charlatanism, leave major sequelae," reports TelQuel.

Many criticize this "prophetic medicine" whose clients, regardless of their social status, are convinced that they are "inhabited" by evil spirits and get it into their heads that the invocation of Allah will free them. Fouad Chamali, a raqi based in Salé, explains that "ruqyah begins first with a diagnosis to know if the patient is possessed, a victim of witchcraft or the evil eye." It is only after this step that "the treatment over several sessions of invocations" could begin. A healer for ten years, he adds that the session is between 50 and 200 dirhams, while the treatment packs (medicinal herbs and hijama, a practice of blood evacuation from the body), can reach 10,000 dirhams. "You can’t imagine how much people are willing to pay to be relieved, and some raqis take advantage of it. Today, they tend more to defraud and deceive the sick than to heal them," he continues.

For Youness Loukili, "these healers have managed to build a mystical and fantasmatic imaginary around these derivatives that, according to them, help to evacuate evil spirits." On the issue, the neuropsychiatrist, Abdelhalim Otarid, recounts that in the 1990s, he had received a bipolar patient who had relapsed because she had stopped her treatment on the advice of a raqi. And this is not the only setback of this medicine that easily manages to convince its patients. Several seriously injured or deceased persons are counted in the practice of this form of healing, during ruqyah sessions in Nador, Tiznit, Salé, Casablanca. Youness Loukili recounts that "some take advantage of the psychological weakness of the sick to sexually assault them; others impose baths, touching, or even sexual intercourse to drive out the jinns."

According to a police source quoted by TelQuel, "a star of ruqyah named Mosâab, was brought before the prosecutor of the king near the Court of Appeal of Casablanca, because accused of rape and fraud" by one of his patients. Faced with the excesses of this ruqyah, Mustapha Benhamza, the president of the Council of Ulema of the Oriental, describes the practice as a "major problem." For him, "ruqyah shar’iyyah can be a moral support for the sick, but it is important that they be treated by specialist doctors."

Faced with the rise of ruqyah in Morocco, Mohamed Abdelwahab Rafiki, alias Abou Hafs, is categorical: "The ruqat manipulate and defraud people by brandishing Islam and the Quran. Yet the sacred text has never been a remedy."